Holidays holidays holidays yipeeeeeeeee

Wahoo second day of my holidays and I have been out and started tidying up the craft studio which I have not been in for weeks.  While I was in there pottering about I suddenly found the urge to start sewing again and picked up a UFO that had been on the design wall a while back and started to sew - phew so glad that happened was thinking I had lost it LOL......

Next is to tidy up the mess of the sculpting table - Oh my goodness what a mess........ I sooo want to get in there and practice my sculpting again.

Funky quilt I will finish this week (fingers crossed and double crossed)

Messy messy messy LOL

Yes I know I am not supposed to be here, you come any closer and my paw will rip you to pieces (no kidding its totally capable of doing that, you should see the bruises on my leg from an altercation in the middle of the night)

Finally an UPDATE on the blog - Warning Picture Heavy LOL

Hi everyone, yes finally an update to the blog its been a while, been busy at work of course really really busy the past few months and basically have been coming home and hitting the zzzzzzzzz's.    BUT in amongst that I have been busy sewing but unfortunately have not been able to show what I was working on until today.

I belong to an online email group called CRAFT which has become an amazing bunch of friends from all over the world and as time goes on we are all getting opportunities to meet each other which is amazing.  We have built some wonderful friendships in this group and the owner of the group is fantastic (and of course the moderators  hehe )     

The girls decided we needed to show Khris our appreciation for all that she does and so a quilt was born LOL.......  I decided on a heart pattern that would work and sent it out to all the girls as a template so they could make a heart and send back to me to make up.  Some were unable to make a heart so contributed some money to me to enable me to purchase some Frolic fabric for the quilt.  (thanks girls)

Khris got her quilt yesterday so now I am going to show the in progress pics and the completed quilt - PLUS a fantastic bag that Pam made of the same fabric which is just incredible, I really wanted to keep it for myself.   Ok here we go lots of pictures 

Lovely Frolic fabric we brought and of course in the second picture the obligatory owl fabric LOL (for those that know Khris well)

Some of the hearts on their backgrounds awaiting borders etc, I tried to match each heart up with an appropriate fabric to make the most of each hearts colors etc 

 Ahhh heres Khris herself waiting to get her heels on LOL

Some hearts with borders on the design wall while I was pondering what to do next for the middle panel, I ended up designing this as I went basically to fit hearts and "Khris" into the middle  and also to get the colors right for each block 

 Woohoo nearly there on the top, starting to get into shape now and Khris has her heels

 Middle panel sorted took me a while to decide how best to break this up

 A flimsy all ready to go...... waiting for backing and quilting - nice owl fabric borders

 Some of the quilting up a bit closer - quilt is crinkly its been through the washing machine and dryer with my heart pounding the whole time too scared to open the washing machine   EEEEEK

 Another close up of the quilting and middle

 Gorgeous bag that Pam made its fantastic and the zip well I really need to make a bag with a zip like this its perfectly done

 Seee perfect zip I love it

Khris with her bag

KHRIS WITH THE QUILT

 Which needs a good press after being in the dryer and in the post...... LOL

Feeling sorry for myself Waaaaaah

Wahhhhhh the girls from CRAFT yahoo group are gathering in Adelaide (Australia) this year for their get together, (I went last year and it was a blast)   and alas I was unable to go at the last minute - a lot to do with that damned money tree I planted which is taking longer than expected to come to bloom  

BUT next year its going to be huge and no way am I missing out so will be looking for cheap fares straight after Christmas and grabbing them fast LOL.........

Partial sculpting pics

Thought I would pop up some pics of works in progress......   I have roughed in a hand for the previous head I made (well my first head LOL )  which is now attached to an armature but not much else going on there.  I made some eyes which I posted in a previous post so decided to make a head to test them out - now these eyes are not all the same size etc but I decided to test them anyways seeing as this is just learning for now...... so I made a head and mucked about with some pastels before it was baked.  when it came out of the oven I didn't like it at all so am now adding clay and seeing if I can fix it up a wee bit, hence why it looks a bit weird with the clay bits stuck on it....... ( I redid the mouth and it looked really bad so smooched it all off again)  Also my first clay body in progress, just the first rough of it nothing smoothed or sorted just getting the basics (I hope)    

Its fun to play with this so really nothing lost if things don't turn out its all learning and playing - which is the way I manage to keep myself afloat at the end of the working week, nothing feels better than going out to the craft studio and just sitting, whether I do anything or not or just look, it always feels good and puts me in a better place.  

The body is actually looking like a naked chicken      

Quilt along

Phew, I have worked all day on a quilt along with the girls from CRAFT group.  We decided we would do strips to get rid of our bits and pieces and UGLY fabric LOL..   So I have sewn all day today and chatted with the girls by video conference, pretty cool to sit and sew and be able to see the other girls as they are sewing and also chat to them as if they are in the same room.   These girls were from Australia and the USA today so pretty cool indeed, I love technology.   So below are some pics of what I managed to get done today.

Box of scraps ready to go 

 Cat from hell who got told off for playing with the iron so decided to destroy some blocks

 WHO ME ????

 Blocks ready to be cut down to size think I did about 11 so far but need more

What the blocks will look like when sewn together

Free sewing accessories pattern by my friend Khris

Pop on over to my friend Khris's Freebies for Crafters Blog or her personal Blog and see what the clever girl has been up to, she has designed the most gorgeous Sewing Accessories Set, but best of all....... the Australian Craft Magazine "HOMESPUN" has used her designs for this months Project on their Web page at Complete Craft.

Way to go Khris 

Clay Eyes

I decided to have another go at making some clay eyes for inserting into my sculpts, although these are just for practice at this point to perfect the process LOL......... so not perfect, but I shall bake them on the weekend a couple of times to see how they hold up to the baking process.    I have used some UV Gel on them to make a dome to give dimension to the eyes so am interested to see how they hold up in the oven as they will need to be able to be baked a couple of times to go into a sculpt.  (these are really tiny so had trouble getting a photo they are only a few millimeters across)  I do not have a matched pair so maybe a cyclops sculpt may be in the future  LOL LOL

The below pic I did on an angle to try and show the doming effect

Craft club day out

Have been meaning to post these pics of our craft day out for the past few weeks and keep forgetting LOL will be our next meeting soon so though heck better get these up for show and tell LOL

I made some more eyes on the weekend and they didn't turn out too bad, I will take some photos of them when I can get some good light as they are very small - I want to bake them a couple of times to see how they hold up to the heat as I used a UV gel to make a dome over the iris.... fingers crossed...... Am also working on some hands and feet for the Yoda head that I posted a few posts ago - have an armature on him ready for the hands and feet - just not sure how I am going to pose him yet.....

Black Bean Brownie/Cake

For those of you who don't know, I normally try to keep to a diet of a fairly low carbohydrate food, not super restricted but I do try not to have potatoes, pasta, rice or bread on a regular basis.  I still splurge once a week or so and enjoy whatever I feel like but try to do low carb at least 70% of the time which seems to work for me in regards to weight management and health.   I still enjoy my wee treats for dessert etc but am trying to make them low carb types of things and now its winter here we do enjoy a hot pudding and full cream ice-cream for dessert some nights for a treat. 

I saw a recipe and heard a lot of comments in regard to a brownie/cake made from Black Beans instead of flour, which sounds awful to me LOL  BUT in the interests of giving things a go I made one this afternoon and to my surprise it came out as a cake which actually tasted pretty good hot (when I took just a wee bit of the side for a sneaky taste)   the instructions said it is better after being in the fridge for a few hours etc but of course I had to have a wee taste being a non believer and all.  It tasted rather yummy so I sure will be interested to see how it fares tonight with some passion fruit ice-cream with it   (it looks a bit funky cause I used baking paper inside the container and didn't bother smoothing it out - I am an instant cook fast and easy for me LOL)